More Than 18 Earthquakes Have Hit The Hollister Area Since Sunday

An earthquake swarm has been rattling San Benito County in the vicinity of Hollister for several days now, with two low-magnitude quakes striking this morning as well. As SF Gate reports, the pair of 3.0M earthquakes, one at 5:14 a.m. Wednesday and the other at 7:08 a.m. came after 16 others that have all struck the same area since Sunday.

As KCRA reports, the largest shaker so far was a 4.2M quake that struck Tuesday at 2:38 p.m., and that was followed by several smaller aftershocks.

Prior to that, a 3.8M quake struck at 2:30 a.m. on Monday.

People in San Benito, Monterey, and Santa Cruz Counties have all reported feeling the smaller quakes, and the largest on Tuesday could be felt as far north as San Jose and Campbell, according to NBC Bay Area.

The area lies directly on the San Andreas Fault, and in total, there have been more than 50 earthquakes of 2.0M or greater around Hollister and nearby Ridgemark in the last month.

There have been no damages or injuries reported. But is this a cause for concern? Unclear.

Meanwhile, up in Napa, the 6.0M quake that struck in August 2014 continues to yield surprises for earthquake scientists, as KQED reports. A new study published in Geophysical Research Letters discusses the significant "afterslip" that occurred in various areas following the quake, as faults continued to move slightly. And apparently "data from earth movements that occurred after the major shaking stopped show helter-skelter patterns unlike anything [scientists have] seen before."